Morning Briefing: Twin Metals Takes on the US Federal Government

Welcome to Mining Stock Daily. I’m Trevor Hall. And I’m Paul Harris.

Today is Tuesday, August 23rd

On Monday gold and silver were hammered overnight, as hedge funds stampeded into the dollar index and, at the same time, shorted stock, gold and silver futures. Paper gold was dropped from $1762 per ounce to a low of $1740 while silver was taken down from $19.05 per ounce to $18.60. The price of both metals, in paper terms, bounced when the Comex opened, ostensibly from short-covering by early morning short-sellers. Both metals were firmly bid when the dollar index flattened out and moved sideways while the stock market continued lower. Gold settled at $1748 and silver settled at $18.90. 

The Mining Stock Journal said that the bounce in gold and silver with the stock market going south is an early sign that the market may start regarding the precious metals as a flight to safety asset. The soaring dollar accompanied by higher Treasury rates Monday suggests brewing turmoil in the credit markets, which ultimately will be bullish for the metals. The mining stocks echoed this thought. After getting hit early in the trading session,  both the Amex Gold Bugs Index and the GDX rallied to close slightly green for the day.

We will get to the news from the miners and explorers in a moment, but first a word about today’s sponsor.

This episode of Mining Stock Daily is brought to you by…Integra Resources.

Integra Resources is advancing the past-producing DeLamar Project in southwestern Idaho. The Company has continued to demonstrate resource growth and conversion through greenfield and brownfield exploration to further de-risk and advance the project towards permitting. Integra Resources trades on the TSX-V under ITR and the NYSE American under ITRG.

And here’s what you need to know this morning….

Arizona Sonoran Copper announced assays from the final six drill holes at its Parks/Salyer Project in Arizona to complete its initial 12-hole, 8,450m exploration program . These results extended mineralization to the north and the west of the Target and demonstrated the continuity of grade and tonnage within the porphyry copper target located 2km from the Cactus Mine. Highlights included 77.3m grading 1.34% copper and 0.011% molybdenum in hole 74 including 33.9m grading1.79% copper and 0.013% molybdenum. The company said assays continue to demonstrate a porphyry copper system with similar grade to the Cactus East deposit, with greater thicknesses, and within the broader mineralized system on which our Cactus Mine, Parks/Salyer Project and even Northeast Extension are situated. It has now moved to a 32,000m drilling program with two rigs to infill Parks/Salyer on 76m centres and by year end expects to have completed 50,290m of drilling on the Project. Arizona Sonoran Copper trades on the TSX under ASCU- News release

First Majestic is out with new assay results from the Jerritt Canyon Gold Mine in Elko County, Nevada.  Follow up drilling to hole SMI-LX-1112 delineated a new gold mineral zone located above the water table, approximately 90m southeast of the new connection drift between the SSX and Smith mines. Geologic interpretation and modeling of the drilling results determined that the gold zone is flat-lying, similar to nearby deposits. Results from Smith Zone 10 included 6.98 g/t gold over 17.6m and 14.6 g/t gold over 13.2m. This confirmed the presence of a high-grade pod of gold mineralization approximately 90m southeast from the connection drift. Additional drilling from the SSX and Smith Mine connection drift returned 19.35 g/t gold over 23.2m. The company says this looks like a new high-grade area on the north side of the SSX/Smith connection drift. Nine follow up drill holes are being planned to further define this potential new zone. First Majestic trades on the NYSE with AG and on the TSX with FR. News Release

Tudor Gold presented the fifth set of drill results for Phase l of the 2022 exploration program at its Treaty Creek property in the Golden Triangle of British Columbia. Highlights in Section E of the Goldstrom deposit included 517.5m grading 1.1g/t AuEQ in hole 146 which included a 10.5m interval of 9.55g/t AuEQ. The company said it saw continued success in the step-out drilling of Goldstorm and its various domains, and the continuation of high-grades within pulses of gold and silver as a late-stage, over-printed style of mineralization. It said drilling at the Eureka Zone revealed gold-silver mineralization similar to the DS5 Domain of Goldstorm with the occurrence of post-mineral intrusive dykes as fault off-sets. The highlight at Eureka was 46m grading 1.05g/t AuEQ in hole 12. Tudor Gold trades on the TSXV under TUD. News release

NiCAN received assay results from historical core drilled at the Wine project in Manitoba in 2007, which confirmed the high-grade historical assays with a highlights of 20.36m grading 1.38% Ni, 2.14% Cu, 0.4g/t Au and 0.06% Co for a 2.09% Ni equivalent in hole 1, which compares with 2.06% NiEq reported in 2007. The company expects to start receiving assay results from its initial 2022 exploration program in the coming weeks which included an airborne geophysical survey, partial resampling of an historical drill hole, downhole geophysical (electro-magnetic) surveys and 17 diamond drill holes for 1,600m. The objective of this program was to confirm the presence of nickel-copper mineralization at the Wine Occurrence, better understand the orientation of the mineralization and improve NiCAN's understanding of the geological model. Recently listed NiCAN trades on the TSXV under NICN. News release

Karora Resources reported drilling results from the first two holes into the Mason and Cowcill interpreted parallel shear zones to the Larkin Zone Mineral Resource of a 24 -hole program with highlights of 13m grading 6g/t Au in hole 25AE at Mason and 5m grading 2.4g/t Au in hole 9AE at Cowcill. Karora also said construction activities to install a second decline at the Beta Hunt Mine are about 67% complete and it is on track and on budget to complete construction in the first quarter of 2023. Karora Resources trades on the TSX under KRR and on the OTCQX under KRRGF. News release

Twin Metals Minnesota filed a significant lawsuit in the United States District Court in Washington Monday to reclaim its federal mineral leases and reverse a series of arbitrary and capricious actions by federal agencies aimed at preventing the development of its modern mining project in northern Minnesota. These actions by the Department of Interior and Bureau of Land Management undercut America’s long-term priorities of securing domestic supply chains, addressing climate change by moving toward a clean energy future, and strengthening national security. Twin Metals’ federal mineral leases were illegally canceled by the Department of Interior earlier this year. In doing so, the agency contradicted the position it asserted and successfully defended in a federal court just four years ago. The lawsuit seeks to restore the leases and other rights, which will restart the environmental review process as required by law for the company’s mine plan. News release

That concludes today’s morning briefing.

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